57 Days

According to my little deployment counter I have 57 days left here before I’m sipping an umbrella drink on the top floor of my hotel in Dubai waiting for my business class flight back to the US to be greeted by the open arms of all my friends. It doesn’t seem like I’ve been here for 133 days already… Well unless I really think about it.

57 days… Can you believe it? It feels like it’s just around the corner. I’ve come a long way since that first day, stepping off of the C-130 on a strange airstrip in the middle of the desert. I’ve met a lot of cool people, who sometimes like to remind me that they have fewer days left than I do.

It’s been quite an adventure getting to where I am now. I remember that first day… Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I was a naïve operator, fresh out of school and ready to make my big break into the UAV world. I was so eager to get started that I didn’t even want to sleep, despite the fact that I should have been more jet lagged than I’ve ever been in my whole life.

Of course after a couple weeks I kicked on the cruise control as my interest level decreased and my frustration level grew. Not long after coming into country, I was sent to set up a spoke as part of a three man team, which brought a whole new set of challenges.

Covered in hydraulic fluid, I stepped off of a CH-53 on a strange helo-pad somewhere even further into the middle of the desert. Even more lost than before and even more sleep deprived. After spending a week setting up the spoke and living in sub-livable conditions we were asked to stay an additional 2 weeks before heading back to the hub. It was my first real taste of hell on earth.

It was hot in the days, unbearably hot by my standards, and the nights weren’t much better. We didn’t have air conditioning for the first week we were here, which made sleeping difficult. Plus the camel spiders found their way into our tents on a nightly basis. After the first week, the marines installed the a/c units, which made it bitterly cold in the tent but I wasn’t complaining. I was rotated out of that site after 3 weeks because I was closing in on my R&R date.

As you can imagine, after spending a week at home I had no desire whatsoever to return to the life I had chosen for myself. It was like giving a child candy and then taking it back after they got one lick. Since I don’t give up I reluctantly returned to the desert to serve the last 4 months of my deployment.

I spent about a month back at the hub before being asked to lead a new hub being set up at the site I had set the spoke up at. Most of the set up work was completed by a team of guys who came down to do the site survey/construction. I took the opportunity because I’d never pass up a chance to shine. And this is where you find me today, in the middle of the desert at a site of my own design and crewed by operators of my choosing. Life is good.

The Life of a Site Lead

Is rather mundane… My main priority throughout the day is to send situation reports every morning to our theatre lead. It’s actually a very easy task, which one of my counterparts found a way to spend an entire day working on. It takes me about 5 minutes to clean my SITREP up and send it off since I spend the day adding and deleting changes.

Of course being a lead I get to deal with the people too. It’s a lot of fun right now because we have such a good group of guys but I can only imagine how it could be if I didn’t. I really have no power to tell these guys to get off my site if they aren’t making the cut. I can ask the theatre lead to bring them back to our mother hub but that doesn’t satisfy me. Some of the ones I’ve encountered shouldn’t be in this line of work.

Right now I’m sitting on our preflight pad. The weather has started to change, but the days still get hot. Our night crew complained to me about how the A/C unit in our tent wasn’t working and how it was 130 degrees while they were trying to sleep. I wish I could help them more but since I have no vehicle to drive over to talk to anyone, my hands are for the most part tied.

I never noticed it before but communications is a huge issue, particularly at my site. It can be rough here at first but when you get use to it, it isn’t so bad. There is a mile walk to work every morning through the desert. The sand, which is more like fine powder, can be shin deep in some places. But the worst part of the day continues to be the boredom. Trying to find any little bit of busy work to make the day go by faster.

After work and our evening turn over I go to the gym with one of our intel analysts. We jog about a mile to get to the gym and run on the treadmills and then jog back. She’s really cool and it gives me something to look forward to after spending the day at work. Sometimes I wonder why people join the military, not because it’s bad but just because some people don’t seem to like it, and she seems like one of those.

Along those lines, I’m wondering myself whether I want to do another deployment. I’ve really become accustomed to working with this group of marines and my next deployment probably won’t be with them. Although, I’ve often allowed fate to direct me through life and I just focus on following the path, so that’s what I’ll continue to do. I’ll keep my eyes open for opportunity and if it doesn’t come then I’ll continue doing this. I just hope my performance here as site lead will not go unnoticed.

Sacrifices

You don’t ever really realize how much you’re missing in life until you start paying attention. You start looking at pictures or reading messages and things start to come into focus. A lot of time I operate out here with the assumption that the rest of the world has stopped. But it hasn’t and we’re all missing out on a lot of things back home.

I was looking at some pictures that my friends have posted and I got a little sad. All the activities that I could be part of, all the changes that are occurring in other peoples’ lives that I’m missing out on, all to be out here.

I have one friend who just had a baby and is preparing to move away from Saint Louis. She was like my workplace sibling. I was there for some of her pregnancy and was one of the first in the office to learn about it. I missed out on my nephew’s first birthday and probably his first few words. I saw him briefly while I was on leave, but only enough for him to remember who I am. I’m sure next time he will have forgotten again.

I nearly missed out on a best friend’s wedding. I made sure that every site lead or manager that I spoke to knew that I was leaving that weekend and to not try and stop me. There are a lot of things that I’ve almost missed or am currently missing. To keep things in perspective though, my situation isn’t near as bad as some.

There are guys out here that are missing the birth of their own children. Others who are missing their own children’s first birthdays, first words or first steps. All the people out here fighting the war are going through tough times. For some, under other circumstances, would potentially be starting their freshman year in college, are instead missing out on their civilian lives. What’s worse is most of them are going through some type of relationship problem. I’m fortunate not to have to deal with that, but it’s hard to talk with them about what they are going through.

It’s all relative, but it’s always difficult. Whether it’s my nephew or someone’s own son or daughter, or it’s hanging out with my friends or someone else hanging out with their friends, it’s difficult for all involved. You see life play out through email, the news, pictures or if you’re lucky a webcam. I guess the truth is that life continues, it’s us out here that are frozen.

Last Man Standing

A couple days ago I started a post that I wasn’t able to finish. By the time I started it the time was nearly midnight and after about 15 minutes I decided that I was too tired to continue. Given a few days to let my mind stew over the intended contents of the prior post, I think that I understand better what I was trying to put down on paper at the time.

It was a beautiful night in Afghanistan. The temperature was probably around 65F and a cool breeze blew over us. This was a departure from what had been the norm, 90F with a blow dryer-like wind blowing dust into your face. We were sitting outside our tent on the last night for the last original member of our cigar group besides me.

I remembered when I first arrived in country when he and the site lead at the time stood waiting for us near the airfield. As we distanced ourselves from the engine blast of the C-130 I looked over and could tell they were Scan Eagle guys. He asked me how I knew, and I responded that we all dress alike. He laughed and said he could tell we were the ones they were looking for because it was all military guys and two dudes dressed in civilian clothing, one being an out of shape, pale white guy. It was a funny conversation, maybe one of those that you need to be there for.

But it was conversations like those that have been few and far between in the past few weeks, maybe even months. Those light-hearted nights when we talked about women and food have faded into something far more morale busting. Our nights are now more or less venting sessions where we gather in our small circle and complain about this person or that one. It’s these times that make me miss home more and more with every given day.

Before, the day felt like it ended. I felt like I was able to escape the country and all the frustrations encountered in the job. Now our days drag on late into the night. We get pounded during the day for various reasons and then we complain about it at night. The only real escape we get is when we crawl into our respective bunks and start a movie on our respective laptops. I always think it’s funny when you look around the tent after lights out and there are gentle glows coming out of every occupied bunk.

Then there was the night we had a few days ago, which was nostalgic. I haven’t laughed about stranger things since my first week here. Don’t get me wrong, we still had those moments where we vented but most of the evening was spent reminiscing about old times. I can’t say that I was surprised since it was one of our last days and no matter how bad things are the end is only one restful night of sleep away for him.

Now that he’s gone I find myself the last remaining member of the team that I started with. I have one other person who will sit out with me during the nights and smoke but he prefers cigarettes to cigars. The nightly anger sessions continue as they’ve always occurred and my only escape continues to be my own personal movie night while lying in my bunk waiting for my last night.

From 35,000 Feet With Love

I’m sitting in an airplane somewhere over Canada at around 35,000 feet on my way back to the sand. I would have been over the US but I wanted to wait for everyone to go to sleep so I wouldn’t offend anyone with the half naked woman on my desktop… Anyway…

Part of me wanted to stay in the relative safety of my home, where I could sleep in my own bed. But a far stronger part of me is excited to get back out there. It’s not the same excitement that I felt the first time. The time before was like anticipating your first kiss. The adrenaline courses through your body and you wonder what it’s going to be like, what you’ll feel, how it’s going to be. A million thoughts running through your mind, except you have 30 hours of travel time to think about it. This time it’s different, I know exactly what to expect, I know what I’m in for and I know how tough it can get.

The monotony is what will drive you nuts. The seemingly endless cycle of days, strung together like a never-ending strand of white Christmas lights. Every day you’ll wake up to the same cycle, no weekends to break up the weeks, and no option for a vacation. Lights on at 0730, leave for work 0745, arrive at work at 0800, eat lunch at 1230, eat dinner at 1830, go home at 2000, go to sleep around 2230 and wake up the next day and do it all over again. I probably couldn’t tell you the day of the week most days, nor could I tell you the date. And at any point your day could go south and your lights put out, along with the rest of the strand.

By the way, I haven’t mentioned today how much I hate flying coach on international flights…. I’m going to take a little break before I go on a senseless tirade about the person in front of me…

Alright, I’m back… Don’t hate me, I’m going to be spending the next 5 months sleeping in a 20 man tent in the middle of the desert, I think I have the right to fly to hell in comfort. Unfortunately upgrading was going to cost more than I was willing to pay. Continuing on with what I’m actually writing for…

So I bet you’re wondering why I’m so excited about going back after all those bad things. The best way to sum it up is that I want to be there with the people. If you watch the news you get a view from 35,000 feet of the war, but if you’re there you get to know the people and you get to befriend the people. I come to love people pretty easily, not like “I love you, I want to marry you” love but more like “I love you man…” kind of love. If you love someone you don’t want them to be in harm’s way alone, and I’ll be damned if something happens to them while I’m gone.

So there you have it. I might be completely delusional but at least I mean well. Now all I have to do is survive the next 24 hours before I’m finally done travelling and back in the relative safety of our base in the middle of the oceanless beach…

Jeff the token Asian, the Operator, and the Builder, oh and the IT Guy

Somehow I got myself branded the local carpenter by my cohorts. Not only that I’ve also been given the title of computer guru given the fact that I have a computer science degree. Neither title is unfounded however since I did build some furniture around my house and I spent the past 5 years working on computers.

The day I got back from setting up the new spoke, without even being given a couple days to readjust, I was asked to fix one of the computer systems. I didn’t even know how the damn thing worked, let alone know how to fix it. Of course since I like little challenges and I don’t like to give up, I tinkered with it for a while. Finally by some stroke of magic it started working again. For the moment I was the hero… Until the other one stopped working, then I was the monkey again. Go fix it monkey… Luckily this monkey is smart. I did just what I had done before and ALAKAZAM! It worked too. That’s how I got the official brand of computer whiz.

Then there was the wood construction. I have an attraction toward using tools, so when I found out we had a whole set of Dewalt tools here, I got to work. I started by building a bench out of an old pallet. The bench probably weighs close to 100lbs and is as solid as concrete. The nice thing about building stuff in the field is that a.) wood is free, and b.) function comes before form. After I built the bench, I was asked to build a table for one of the marines to use, then I was tasked to build another table for our new site lead. Most recently I got stuck building 2 stands to hang cables, and a series of shelves for storage. This has most certainly gotten out of control.

I spent the entire morning hammering, sawing and sweating my butt off out in the 130 degree heat trying to build something sturdy enough to hold the spare computers. Then I spent a few hours rummaging through a wood pile on the other side of the airfield, probably disturbing some camel spiders in the process. That sucked because pretty much all the wood had nails sticking out and the pile of wood was on top of a heap of moon dust, which dominates the landscape here. Moon dust is like really fine dirt, kind of like talcum powder but brown. Anyway, there isn’t sand in this desert, there is moon dust.

So, alone, I piled all the wood in the back of our pickup truck and drove it back to site. Leaving a few pieces behind along the road, which I had to drive back to retrieve. Since I spent 15 minutes trying to get one of them out, an 8 foot 4x4, which will come in very handy, I didn’t want to just leave it in the middle of the road. Now it’s all waiting for me outside, in the 140 degree heat, to hammer some nails into it to create something awesome.

FOBbin'

It’s been almost a week since I left our hub and moved to one of the FOBs, or Forward Operating Bases. My mission was to come down and install a new system and start operating to make sure everything worked correctly. It was a pretty big honor to be given the opportunity to do this and it says a lot about how my site lead felt about my abilities. Most of all I’m lucky to be far away from all the drama of the hub.

Life here isn’t exactly a vacation but I love it. We don’t have A/C in the tents and temperatures average around 120 during the day. It wasn’t affecting me until I volunteered to work at nights, which means I’ll be sleeping during the day when it’s like trying to sleep in an easy bake oven. My shower is an Igloo cooler strapped to the side of a wall, which sounds awful but is probably the best shower I’ve had since coming out here. In fact I might create one when I get home.

The more obviously positive things include the fact that work is within walking distance of our tent, which I share with the officers. I have time during the day to go to the gym, which is comprised mainly of handmade wooden weight benches and a potpourri of random metric weights. I’ve probably worked out harder here than I have in a long time. I’m eating better here than I eat back home, and I’m better hydrated since bottled water seems infinite. I shower with it (the Igloos), I brush my teeth with it, and I’ve even washed my clothes with it.

Life here isn’t bad at all. The people here are all very cool. I pretty much spend the entire day with the same 5 people and there’s always a story to share. Like I’ve said before, tossing a bunch of people in a seemingly negative situation acts as a catalyst for developing good friendships. We’re pretty relentless with each other, cracking jokes at each other’s expense and it only draws us closer.

I’m only here for a short period of time before heading back to the hub and then I’ll spend another few weeks there before heading back to the states to be in a wedding, which I’m looking forward to. I won’t be able to post this until I return to the hub since I don’t have internet access here, which is also a plus.